Rick Baker Reveals Spielberg's 'Night Skies' Unused Alien Designs

For those who don't know, Steven Spielberg once flirted with the idea of a darker sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, focusing on one man's encounter with a UFO. The film was called Night Skies, but was eventually abandoned and somewhat blossomed into E.T. The Extra Terrestrial following Spielberg's meeting with Melissa Mathison. But when Night Skies was still in development, make-up and special effects wizard Rick Baker (Star Wars, Harry and the Hendersons, Men in Black) was working on aliens for the film. Though we never saw the film, he's posted some of the alien designs online.

As you can see, there are some similarities between one of the designs and the taller, skinnier alien we see at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There's also that one that references E.T.'s father, though we're not sure if that's a design that was truly meant to be the senior to the cute alien from Spielberg's iconic film, or just a design that looks like him. Even one of the other designs shares some traits with the once stranded alien. It's so strange seeing the alien designs like this, mostly because Baker's work is so realistic, and it feels like these are real alien heads mounted like big game that's been hunted. Pretty cool, right?